Thursday 11th
May was
one of the best-attended
Community Council meetings ever seen on Lismore.
Top of the agenda
was the impending ‘opt out’ from out-of-hours services by the
Port Appin GP practice (Dr. Iain McNicol and Dr. Kate Howlett),
which serves the island.
Dr. McNicol attended the meeting.

Despite
pressure from Lismore
communityand
from the Appin GPs
over the last 15 months, Argyll and Bute Community Health
Partnership and the Scottish Ambulance Service have so far been
unable to propose a safe and effective alternative solution for
emergency medical cover on
the island.

Following
an opt out by the Port Appin practice, the only out-of-hours
access to a doctor for islanders would be via NHS 24 to the duty
GP based in the hospital in Oban. Although this doctor is said
to be available for home visits, the reality of the situation is
that they would take several hours to attend a patient on
Lismore and during that time, they would be unavailable to the
thousands of others on the mainland who might be depending upon
them.

The issue
has been brought to a head by the recent withdrawal by NHS Board
middle management of the 15 hours per week relief cover for the
island’s nurse practitioner, without any consultation with the
island community. This was considered an insidious reduction,
by the back door, of health care provision for Lismore.

The narrow
strip of water dividing Lismore from the mainland has always
prevented the ambulance service from accessing patients on
the island
and this

will
continue to be the case in the absence of a rapid response
vehicle ferry. While
helicopter evacuation could be an option if a helipad were
provided, experience shows
that it could take more than three hours to arrive.
Until now, seriously ill patients have either been treated by
the local GP in their own homes or depended upon a voluntarily
arranged patient evacuation plan devised, organised and
implemented by the doctor.

In his
closing remarks Dr McNicol suggested that the community might
wish to press for their own GP, resident on the island, with an
island surgery. “You are being short changed compared to every
other island,” he said, making it clear that despite a growing
population, health provision was already shrinking.

The
Community Council resolved to continue to press, at the highest
levels, for a clinically safe and sustainable out-of-hours
service, which would enable the Port Appin practice to opt out.
Meanwhile, islanders are left feeling vulnerable and anxious.